I will continue to try to move my earlier posts to my Blogger blog by this same name (Random Points) over to this blog.  In the meantime, however, a searching mind never rests. . . .

I had occasion to spend yesterday driving through a big piece of the South Carolina countryside.  At this time of year there is much beauty there:  farm fields filled with young corn and soybean seedlings, pretty villages filled with flowers, incredibly picturesque live oaks draped with Spanish moss.  There is also, at all times of year, acre upon acre - mile after mile - of long-leaf and loblolly pines planted in straight rows.

I am a lover of the printed page, and I know that printed pages currently, at least, require trees.  I know that the amount of paper required for printing and other paper products demands great plantations of trees.  I even know that it is better to use plantation trees for paper than ancient trees.  And I know there are other plants which, if farmed, could replace trees as raw material for paper, on much less land, but that's for another time.

The subject of this screed is the disingenuous way the paper companies and related interests present themselves to the public as interested in "forestry".  Not long ago there was a series of TV advertisements around here in which a little boy talked about his Dad, who was this wonderful guy who planted trees to make sure there would always be lots of "forests" for all to enjoy.

"Forests"?  Here's a definition from Webster (via Dictionary.com): 

An extensive wood; a large tract of land covered with trees; in the United States, a wood of native growth, or a tract of woodland which has never been cultivated.  (Emphasis added)

These plantations are the antithesis of forests.  They are farm fields, just like the corn and soybeans down the road.  Walk into one of these forests:  you will see birds, but not many and only those few species that happen to prefer pine woods.  Similarly for other animals and understory plants.

Now, these guys have a right to raise pretty much whatever crop will provide them a living.  My wish for their land to be used for something else gives me no standing to kick them off.  But it makes me mad to see them passing themselves off as the guardians of our natural heritage.  The public, bless them and forgive my elitist ways, knows little enough about the substance of the real environmental issues, and should not be misled into thinking that these tree farms are "forests".  Part of everyone's education should be to spend a day in western North Carolina among virgin hemlocks, to find out what a "forest" is.

End of screed.  See you soon!

10:46:30 PM